Elon Musk Is Hosting a Hyperloop Pod Design Competition

Elon Musk is at it again - pushing young, creative minds to change the future, or, more specifically, turn his theorized hyperloop into a reality. The hyperloop concept, which would connect areas via a nearly frictionless high-speed bullet train, has been deemed technically possible by many top minds, but Musk has confirmed that he is unable to dedicate the amount of time needed to realize his own dream. Instead, the SpaceX genius has turned to crowdsourcing to speed the process along, and hopefully, gain new ideas to improve upon it in the process.

So far, only the contest announcement paperwork has been released, but more detailed rules and criteria will debut in August. All we know so far is that the competition has three stages, the preliminary design stage, the final design stage, and the scale model (competition) stage. Competitors who do not wish to build a pod may still present designs for a whole system, or even for an individual feature for the system. For the final stretch of the competition, SpaceX will be constructing a test track to get a better sense of how each of the half-scale pods would run.

It's all very vague, but hopefully this contest will result in a much better understanding of hyperloop technology, and a greater chance that the 30 minute commute from LA to SF will become a reality. If you think you have what it takes to be a part of the future of technology, the contest form can be found at www.spacex.com/hyperloop.